Last week ‘I Daniel Blake’, Ken Loach’s searing depiction of the indignities of the UK social security system, premiered as a stage play in Newcastle. The actor who originally played Daniel, Dave Johns, says that he was motivated to adapt the film for the theatre because:

“Nothing really has changed from when the film first came out. It’s got worse really, you know, with the cost of living rise and that."

He isn’t wrong. Last week the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, Tom Pursglove MP, announced that Capita Business Services had been awarded the contract for ‘Functional Assessment Services‘ in Northern Ireland.

Capita is the same organisation who have for many years delivered Personal Independence Payment eligibility assessments on behalf of the UK Government and the NI Department of Communities; assessments which provided the model for the inflexible and reductive questioning which so devastates and humiliates Daniel in the film.

Capita: whose poor decision making on assessments led to appeals with a success rate of over 66%. In a previous blog, PPR Management Committee member and former EBIAC Director Mary McManus noted that:

“It is not uncommon for people to be awarded zero points at their DfC/Capita assessment only to have an independent tribunal panel award them enough points to qualify for the highest rate of the benefit at the tribunal hearing. The issues with assessments by Capita are well documented.”

Image caption: Despite their failings, Capita has again been provided with a significant chunk of money from the public purse.

Capita: whose approach to PIP assessments was criticised by disabled people as ‘superficial, dismissive, and contradicted the advice of their doctor’ and as ‘merely being processed rather than listened to or understood’ leading the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to conclude that ‘the needs, views and personal histories of persons with disabilities….were not properly taken into account or given appropriate weight in the decisions affecting them.’

Capita: who were slammed by the National Audit Office for the ‘well below standard’ primary care support services it has provided to the NHS since it was awarded the contract in 2015.

Capita: whose processes, according to 2018 research undertaken by the Right to Work Right to Welfare Group supported by PPR, resulted in worse mental health, increased poverty and a lack of due process among people making claims. The group’s campaigning on the need for Capita to take into account other relevant evidence, such as GP reports, helped to inform the Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman’s formal investigation into the Department for Communities and Capita’s handling of social security cases. This same investigation found that Capita were guilty of ‘systemic maladministration’ in their approach to PIP assessments by the Ombudsman in 2021.

Image caption: In 2014, Right to Work:Right to Welfare activists protested welfare cuts directed against the poorest in our communities

In a follow-up investigation, also published this week, the Ombudsman found that just 10 of her 33 recommendations for change had been fully implemented; she remains concerned that applicants remain unclear as to whether their health professional will be contacted and that the letters and information sent to them are too complex and hard to understand.

Capita: whose assessors were not required by the Department for Communities to undertake training in suicide prevention awareness. In 2020, the National Audit Office found that the number of people who took their own life as a result of benefit assessments could be substantially higher than the 69 it identified. And in 2021, a coroner investigating the death of a young woman who died by suicide found that Capita and the DWP had made multiple mistakes in handling her case.

Capita: who earlier this year, were subject to a cyber-attack and then forced to reveal that they had left benefits details of Colchester Council residents on an unsecured Amazon Data Bucket. Subsequently, several further councils reported that their residents had also been affected, leading the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to seek further information from the organisation.

Capita: whose revenue increased to £2.8bn in 2022 and reported a ‘step change in profitability.’

It beggars belief that an organisation with such a poor track record should be reappointed, especially as the gatekeeper to an essential financial support for disabled people.

Despite their failings, Capita has again been provided with a significant chunk of money from the public purse. It beggars belief that an organisation with such a poor track record should be reappointed, especially as the gatekeeper to an essential financial support for disabled people.

The ‘Functional Assessment Services’ which Capita has now been commissioned to carry out in Northern Ireland are nominally a staging post towards a wider change within the social security system, which will introduce a ‘Health Assessment Service’ designed to deliver all assessments within a given geographical area.  According to the Minister’s statement, this will reform

“the benefits system for the future so it focuses on what people can do, rather than on what they cannot;”

and

“ensure people can access the right support at the right time and have a better overall experience when applying for, and receiving, health and disability benefits.”

The UK Government is at any rate tacitly acknowledging that its previous processes have failed disabled people, causing many distress and creating an attitude of hostility and disdain towards disabled people.  It will be cold comfort to disabled and unemployed people who have experienced Capita’s approach first hand to know that this is the case.